By means of such apparatuses, for example, printed products which are transported in an imbricated formation on a conveying belt are transferred to a further conveying arrangement, which is capable of gripping individual printed products with a respective gripper, as a result of which the printed products retained in the grippers can be fed separately for further processing. Such an apparatus is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,894. In the case of the apparatus disclosed therein, printed products are fed, via a conveying belt, to a conveying nip which serves for deflecting the printed products. Once the printed products have left the conveying nip, they pass into a transfer region, in which they are gripped individually at their leading edge by controllable grippers. Provided in the transfer region is a stop rail for printed products which pass too early into the transfer region, said stop rail preventing these printed products from moving further, in order to ensure that printed products which have entered too early can easily be gripped at the correct point in time by the gripper assigned to them. Also provided in the transfer region is a deflecting arrangement, which raises the printed products slightly in the region of their leading edge in order thus to allow the printed product to be easily gripped by the gripper assigned to it. The deflecting arrangement here also has, inter alia, stops which are designed as spring plates, are intended for printed products which are delayed in entering and result in these delayed printed products, in the first instance, being deflected downward, in order to avoid damage to the printed products. These printed products are then raised again by the deflecting arrangement at the point in time at which they can be gripped by the gripper provided for them. Both the abovementioned stop bar and the stops designed as spring plates have no function if a printed product which is to be transferred—and this is the normal case—enters into the transfer region at the envisaged point in time.
The above-described apparatus according to the prior art, on the one hand, has the disadvantage that the printed products, at the moment they are gripped by the grippers assigned to them, merely rest on a conveying arrangement, but are not fixed there in any way, with the result that it is not ensured that the printed products can be gripped in a precise position in each case by the grippers. On the other hand, the above-described apparatus also has the disadvantage that, for printed products of different sizes, types and/or thicknesses, it has to be adjusted in each case in adaptation to the respective printed products.